


Protection and Ponderations

by crepesamillion



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Siblings, Psychological Trauma, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25887772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crepesamillion/pseuds/crepesamillion
Summary: Willow grabbed Wilson by the skinny shoulders and swore that she’d rip a gaping new something in the somewhere of anyone who dared hurt him.
Relationships: Willow & Wilson (Don't Starve)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	Protection and Ponderations

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't tag Maxwell because I don't want this fic to bother Maxwell fans, but that gives it away. This fic is kind of related to my last one about Willow and Wilson in which Willow cries about her traumas onto Wilson. This one is the other way around.
> 
> Personally I don't buy the idea that the survivors wholeheartedly accept Maxwell into their group and forgive him for what he's done. There's plenty of quotes in game that I interpret as evidence for this . . . but I won't debate anyone . . . anyway . . .

Blue hour settled like cool linen sheets over the woods. A few pinpoint stars glittered, broken glass scattered throughout the treetops. Only the most demure breeze ruffled the navy pines, bringing with it the mossy tang of distant rain.

Willow gazed into the fire, watching the treeline waver like a funhouse mirror through the smoke.

Dust and soot and cobwebs filled her brain like an old caved-in box crammed in a distant corner of the attic. She jabbed a heavy stick into the fire to stir the ash and draw circles in the heaps of soft gray powder.

Everything was quiet. Quiet not in the sense of calm and stillness of an early morning, but quiet in the sense of something _missing,_ like an empty church.

Everything was too quiet.

“Are you feeling well, dear?”

Willow kept her chin balanced on her fist. Somehow she couldn’t break her eyes away from staring through the fire. The wispy flames blurred into a haze.

“I’m all right, Granny. Why?”

Wickerbottom hummed in a derisive little moo that meant “I don’t quite believe that, but I don’t feel shifted to press the matter.” She left that to be interpreted. Out loud she said, “You haven’t touched your supper. I’m sure it’s gone cold by now.”

“Oh, um, I don’t like vegetables.”

“Deary, I hope you could remember that in any situation, but ours especially, one must avoid wasting—”

“I lied, actually. I’m waiting on Wil. He never _told_ me to wait to eat with him, but gosh, I’ve gotten so used to having dinner together that I feel funny to go ahead without him.”

A pause lingered, prickly, just enough to be uncomfortable. Willow locked her elbows and dug her heels into the dirt and braced herself for imminent scolding on the deadly sin of a mouth that lies about vegetables.

“Perhaps this evening he wouldn’t mind, dear.”

Willow tipped her head to look over her shoulder.

“What do you mean, Gran?”

Wickerbottom laced her fingers together. The firelight hit her at just the right angle to make her wrinkles look deep as trenches.

“He had a rather . . . unpleasant encounter, I should say.” Wickerbottom glanced at the row of tents. The tilt of her head made light glint off her spectacles in white rectangles.

“What’s that mean? Did he finally get abducted?” Willow laughed and it rattled around in her ribs like a marble. She thrust the stick deeper into the fire.

“I suppose he would have chosen that instead, were he offered the choice. I’m sure you know that his relationship with Mister Maxwell is a bit more, err, tense than the rest of ours.”

‘ _Mister Maxwell_ ’ made puke burn the back of Willow’s throat faster than a bowlful of octopus gumbo would have.

“Don’t tell me that jerk touched Wilson.”

For once, Wickerbottom didn’t admonish Willow for the language.

“They had an altercation, from what I heard. Wilson is fine, dear. He’s understandably upset, but—”

Willow stabbed the stick into the fire as though she were dealing a death blow to an elephant and stood. She grabbed the bowl of stew, cold and grainy with a crinkled brown skin on top, and marched toward the rows of tents. The one Wilson shared with Wes was lopsided to a precarious degree and never seemed to stay upright for more than a night—though God knew whatever Wilson and Wes did in there didn’t help.

One half of the tent flap was drawn back. Just enough to let the firelight glow melt inside in a soft triangle like a gooey slice of lemon pie. Willow made her last step a solid stomp to let Wilson know she was there.

“Heya, Wilson. I’ve been waiting for you. You have no idea how to treat a lady, as usual.”

She bent forward at the waist to peer inside the tent. Her voice jangled with cheer but sounded like a dying shout deep in the throat of a humid cold cave.

“Did you lose track of time again? Writing notes about ghosts and beefalo mating habits?” 

The joke fell and clattered a bit as it went and Willow wished she hadn’t teased.

“Hi.” Wilson sat against the side of the tent, draped in darkness. His old journal was closed at his feet. “You can come in if you want.”

Willow ducked inside and the dust of beefalo hair made an itchy whirlwind in her eyes. Scrunching her nose, she dropped to her butt beside Wilson with an “oof” and used her free hand to wad her skirts around her knees.

“I brought you some supper,” she said. It came out in a too-loud blurt, like toothpaste from the tube in an eager fist. She pushed the bowl at him. “It’s, uh, soup? It _was_ soup. I think there’s carrots in it. Or maybe that’s a piece of potato. Vegetables are gross.”

“Thank you, Willow.” Mechanically, Wilson accepted the bowl, but didn’t even squint into it to examine the contents. He held it in his lap, hands cupped around it.

Willow stared down her legs at her scuffed boots. She rolled her ankles to press the worn-out toes of her boots together, back and forth. Each quiet thump sounded like a bang in the silence.

“What’cha been up to?” she said at last.

“Just pondering, I suppose.”

“Ooh. Pondering. ‘Bout what?”

“The state of affairs.”

“Affairs,” she repeated. “How naughty. What are they?”

“I wish we could go home.”

Well. Wilson rarely mentioned _that._ And never so forlornly. He always proclaimed some tripe about science and inventions and blueprints that gave Willow the most tremendous urge to fall asleep picking her nose. Willow had always assumed that Wilson cared as little about going home as she did.

“Oh, Wil. I’m sure we all want to get back to regular old civilization. Not just you.” Willow wedged her fist between Wilson’s elbow and his side to link her arm with his. “Maybe it’s not so bad, huh? This place, I mean. It sucks, but hey, you met Wes. And found me again.” She fluttered her lashes as though she were standing toward the wind in a snowstorm.

The sentiment didn’t even strike a dent into Wilson’s gloom. His shoulders sank under a weight that Willow couldn’t see.

“It’s far worse for me than for any of you. It’s my fault we’re still here.”

An uppercut to the jaw would have made Willow’s brains reel less. Surprise made a laugh shoot out before she could gulp it back.

“Huh- _huh_! I must be crazy. I know you’re not accepting blame for something. You’d blame a whirlwind on a dragonfly before you’d admit anything’s your fault.”

Wilson flinched. “Maybe it just occurs to me sometimes.”

“What?”

“Reality.”

“Reality of what?”

“That I was brought here.”

“Wil—”

“Brought here the same as you or anyone, but having had gates of immense knowledge opened up. Answers to so many secrets of the universe were revealed to me, to the extent of knowing ways to cheat even death itself, yet I’ve done nothing to save us. We’re all as lost as we’ve ever been. Everyone is waiting for me to figure out how to open some door or turn back a time dial or _something_ but all I’ve truly learned is that I’m as useless as ever.”

Wilson drew a sharp little breath. “I’ve forgotten everything, Willow. The secrets I learned aren’t in my head anymore. I gave up everything for them, and I don’t even have them anymore. Sometimes I’m not sure if they were ever really there to begin with.”

Willow realized she was squeezing his arm, digging her chewed-off nails into the meager bit of sinewy meat packed over the bone.

“Maxwell _did_ talk to you, didn’t he. That creep. That two-timing sonuvabi—”

“Who told you?” A fleeting spark lit Wilson’s eyes like a comet. Panic? Fear?

“It’s obvious enough,” she snapped, and it wasn’t even a lie. “I’m not stupid, Wilson. You’re positively dismal. You haven’t cracked a single joke this whole time. Someone would want to hang themselves after talking to you.”

Wilson winced.

“I can’t believe that _jerk_. The nasty shriveled balls on that rancid old fart. Parading around with us like he’s just part of the ol’ camaraderie. The absolute—ugh!”

Willow cracked her fists against her knees and swept her hands into her hair to jerk her pigtails. In her fit of fuming, she didn’t hear the warning sniffles until it was too late.

Wilson sank over like a bag of flour and folded his arms atop his knees to press his face into them, hard as an iron against a crumpled shirt. His shoulders went so stiff and tight they could’ve broken. His hand knotted into a fist that trembled like a flame in a breeze.

Willow froze. She stared at him, suddenly cold all the way to the roots of her hair. When Wilson sucked a thin breath through his teeth that caught on the edge of a whimper, Willow’s heart crushed like an egg under a stiletto heel.

“Aw, ew, Wilson . . . . “ Helplessly, Willow fidgeted her hands around the air, drawn toward Wilson then fumbling back. What was she supposed to do?

Wilson didn’t cry often. He might have been a big baby, and lily-livered, and a complainer, and whiny and pathetic and a loser, but he didn’t cry. Especially not like this. Not contorted, tight, sobbing in silent breaths that could suffocate him, keeping his face mashed against his arm because he couldn’t look at her or let her see.

Willow reached for him again. She spread her arms. “Come’re, you weenie.” It was the most tenderly she’d ever said anything in her life.

Wilson didn’t uncover his face or turn his head. He leaned. The moment he moved toward her in acceptance instead of away, Willow flung her arms around him and cradled him. Tightening one arm around his shoulders, she locked her fingers around her other wrist to secure him close against her.

“Talk,” she said. “This is the only time I’m gonna listen to you instead of just pretending.” 

Her chin rested atop his head, and his hair bristled against her face like an ornery cat, but she wouldn’t let go of him if the entire world depended on it.

“It’s just—him—” Wilson’s voice faltered. “I’m scared of a lot of things, Willow, but I don’t know what I feel when he’s around. I can’t call for anyone or run or duck the way I can when I’m scared of anything else. I want to cover my ears and hope he’d go away but I can’t do anything but stand there.”

Willow stared through the glittering dust motes that drifted through the air. She swallowed and tightened her arms around him.

“He pretends like it’s _my_ grudge that drags everyone down and keeps us from getting anywhere. Like I’m petty and hold onto bygones when he’s changed. When you’re around it’s different. When anyone else is there, it’s not so bad. But he always lets everything come out when he catches me alone, and I haven’t been alone since he first found me and lied to me and brought me here and—”

Willow crushed him closer. Her heart thudded. “You’re not alone anymore. It’s okay, Wil. I’m not gonna leave you. I’m here with ya.”

“He says horrible things, Willow. Things that get into my head and chip away at everything else inside. It’s not like it was back home, all promises and reassurance. He got what he wanted from me so there’s nothing left. He still says it’s my fault. That it was a test of wit and I should’ve been strong enough to know better, to say no, instead of believing all the good things he told me and doing whatever he said just because I expected he’d keep the promises.”

Willow didn’t want to say that it seemed to be a pattern in Wilson’s life. He always did believe lofty promises and dig himself into the mire and nearly drown because he was too dazzled by the thoughts of something better. He was gullible. Too much trust. Not much sense. Almost like a kid. Even _she_ was never swayed by hope in empty promises.

But it wasn’t his fault.

Willow pressed her cheek against his head. 

“You know he’s a dirty liar,” she said fiercely. “He screwed us all over. That’s the only reason he’s ever gotten his way: lying, lying, lying. God, I hate his guts. I hate him down to his brittle old baking soda bones for ever touching you.”

A sob cracked into her shirt. Wilson’s shoulders seized. Willow clutched him against her with all the force left in her arms, packing him against her side. 

“I still feel it, Willow. Realizing how ridiculous it all was but I _believed_ it. Knowing that all of it was just for his gain and that he convinced me to trade everything I had for things he never gave me, and getting nothing for my trouble but being locked away in a world I don’t know with no way out just to die, over and over, in a loop forever—” 

He choked.

“He still insists you hate me. That you all do. He tells me you only humor me in hopes I could find a way back home for us all but you lose faith in me more each day. He tells me I don’t deserve any of you, and that if I keep making mistakes and slowing us down it’ll be over. He says the only one who could ever understand how I feel to be an outcast is him. And I don’t want to believe that, Willow, I don’t want to believe we’re anything alike or that he knows how I feel, I don’t want to think I’m like him—”

Wilson’s panic bled into his words, bubbling them, making them run together and stumble, all muffled up in snot and Willow’s shirt. Willow buried her face in his hair. Her hands burned, tingled, like she’d been slicing lemons and garlic all afternoon. Her breath came out hard and minced. In desperation, she clutched Wilson’s head against her shoulder, pillowing it there, pinning him to her side.

“I’m gonna kill that guy,” she muttered. “I’m gonna kill him and bring him back to life and then kill him again in a worse way. Don’t believe a word he says, Wil. He’s off his old man rocker. I know it freaks you out ‘cause of what he did, but every word he craps out of his gross wrinkly mouth is a lie.”

Wilson’s stairstep sobs were slowing, but emptying his lungs of each one jostled him and made him feel even smaller in her arms, as though pieces of him were just breaking off. On impulse, Willow shoved her hand into his mess of hair and plowed it back and forth.

“It wasn’t your fault. You’re stupid, but none of this is your fault. If he hadn’t done it to you, he would’ve done it to someone else. He’s lied to us all and promised us all things we’ve never gotten. You're not special. We know that. We understand. We don’t hate you. None of us do!”

For some reason, her eyes heated up, full of lava, ready to spill over into Wilson’s hair. The world shifted and sparkled like a kaleidoscope lens. She snuffled, and her voice quavered just a little, like a violin string scraped the wrong way.

“Wes loves you for sure. You should see how he lights up to beat a Christmas tree whenever anyone mentions you. And old Granny Wickerbottom would eat you up with her morning coffee in a heartbeat. Woodie would go to bat for ya, and Webber thinks you’re Dad of the Year no matter how many times you tell him to go buzz off and count ladybugs and leave you alone. And I guess you already know I love you too—”

Something gummed up in her throat, and she gulped the same way she would to pound back a spoonful of liniment. 

“We all do.”

For the first time, Wilson lifted his hands, weak and slow. He curled his fingers into Willow’s sleeves. His face was still buried in her shoulder, outlined by a sopping wet puddle that stained her shirt to a wine-burgundy. Any other time she would have gagged to have snot rubbed into her shirt, _especially_ Wilson’s snot, but this was the exception. She’d puke later. Right now, nothing mattered except easing Wilson’s heartache. She clapped her hand against his back and smoothed circles between his shoulderblades, flattening the rumples in his waistcoat.

“Feeling any better . . . ?”

Wilson sighed. It was sticky and quiet. “Yes. I’m sorry to unload so much. I know it’s unbecoming and I do a good job at keeping it to myself, but today it just . . . thank you, Willow.”

“Nah. You needed to talk to me. We’re family. I’ve cried my fair share on you. If you couldn’t tell me, who would you tell?”

“Wes.”

“Hah!”

“No . . . you’re right, I suppose.”

“Of course I am. Aren’t I always? Oh, Wil—” She scrunched her face. “You sound disgusting.”

“I do?” It sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of peanut butter, slow and tentative, a murmur that could’ve come from someone with a cold who’d just woken from a fitful nap.

Willow wasn’t well acquainted with gentleness, but she cradled him as carefully as she would a kitten.

“I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell ya again. Anyone who hurts you is going to get a visit from me and my girlfriends Wrath and Fury, and it’s gonna end with their head on backwards and their butt sideways.”

A puff of breath came out in a snort—was that a laugh?—and Wilson said, “I appreciate that.”

“You think I’m bluffing, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m grateful for the sentiment.”

“Don’t act so proper. I’m the one with your boogers on my shirt. I know you dream of giving Maxwell the what-for too.”

“You vastly underestimate my fantasies.”

“Ooh!” Willow squawked like an excited piglet and shook Wilson a bit. “And so the gentleman cracks. Tell me, Wil. I won’t blab to a soul.”

“Promise?”

“I swear.”

“Every now and again I get the urge to hide myself in a hedge and slingshot a nice hefty stone into a clamoring herd of antsy beefalo.” Wilson’s voice drifted dreamily. “And when they’re fair riled, ornery enough to gore anything to smithereens . . .”

Willow’s imagination raced to crank out the rest of the satisfying scenario.

“I like it, I like it. What if, though, instead of firing off a rock, we use a beehive?”

“You’re smarter than you look, Miss Willow.” The inklings of a smile cracked past Wilson’s frown, hitching up the side of his mouth just a bit, and it was like a sunrise after an Alaskan winter. Willow pursued it with every iota of energy and intensity she had in her whole soul.

“What if we crammed the whole dang beehive full of moon rocks?”

“And waste a valuable resource? No way. Durians.”

“Rotten eggs.”

“Since when have we had eggs around long enough to rot? With the way Wes eats?”

“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Ma’am.”

“One baby fire hound.”

“Gunpowder!”

Willow laughed with delight. When Wilson giggled with her, her laughs pitched into a squeal of glee. She squished him into a smothering hug, nearly bowling him over like a playful puppy.

“I made you smile,” she said breathlessly, winded from laughter. “How about that, huh? I made you sm-i-i-i-i-le.”

“So you did.” And even though his face was blotchy, red, crisscrossed with veins and shiny with leftover tears, the smile cranked a little higher.

“You won’t ever hear the end of this. You owe me. I made you feel better.”

“You did indeed.” Wilson sighed. Small, shaky, but content. “I can’t remember when I last needed a good laugh so much.”

“You’re not the only clown in the family. In fact, you’re not one at all. Whenever you tie the knot with Wes it’ll be two against one. You’re the odd one out, Wil. Your goober jokes couldn’t make a dog wheeze.”

“Goober?”

Willow jostled him. “Yeah, you are. You are so lucky to have me around to balance things out.”

“I don’t know if that’s the reason, but yes. I am lucky to have you.”

“Yeehaw. I never heard that before.”

Willow released her grip on Wilson and straightened out her legs with a gusty sigh. Her heels banged against the earth and she pitched back her head.

“Well! I have some business to attend, Wil. Don’t follow me. You’ll thank me later. Got anything else you need to say?”

Wilson’s smile softened. “I don’t believe so. I appreciate everything, Willow. I mean that.”

“I know ya do.” Willow smacked her hand atop his head and scrubbed her fingers into his hair, tousling it like a parent would with a child’s in the way she knew he hated. “Eat that soup now, won’t you? You look like a cadaver. You might need a pickaxe instead of a spoon, though.”

“I’ll work on it. I’ve had more appetizing library paste.”

Willow held back the tent flap with her arm and crouched beneath it. She let it go and disappeared, footsteps crackling over dead grass and fading. 

Wilson sighed. His chest hurt deep inside when he did. It was somehow a pleasant ache, like relaxing into a soft bed after a long, weary day. 

He reached for his journal, tucked his legs comfortably to the side, split the book open to a well-worn page, and rested the bowl of cemented soup on his lap. 

“Well, well!”

Willow’s shout rang out like a gunshot, echoing and bouncing off trees.

“Look who came slithering back and bringing his slime trail with him. I guess even you need to suck down some soup when there’s no leftover souls or human viscera around, huh?”

Wilson doubled over like a folding chair and stuffed his nose into his journal. She _wasn’t._ Was she?

Wickerbottom’s intervening voice was mild. Between his sniffling and Willow’s barking, he couldn’t understand what she said.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you! God, aren’t you a blight. Your nuts must be bigger than your brain if you think you can just ooze up and sit next to me for dinner after what you did to my brother. And that isn’t a compliment, mind you.”

A laugh broke loose and made Wilson’s raw throat hurt until a whole new flood of tears came jangling loose and plattered over the journal pages.

“I assure you, _miss,_ I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, so now you call me ‘miss’! You stain. Wilson told me everything.”

Maxwell’s disgusting haughty sniff sounded like a horse popping open a plugged nostril. “I believe we both know that Mr. Higgsbury tends to exaggerate.”

“And now you call him ‘mister’! That’s a fresh one. Finally got us straight, huh? Impressive, Max. We all know how you are. Crawling around and stinking up our air.”

“Madam, I implore you to take a generous step backwards and leave me be. Miss Wickerbottom, do you care to usher away the, err, ragamuffin to her quarters?”

“You’ve crossed it, now. You bet.” Something clanged. “You are going to feel hellfire in your softies. You’re gonna be barfing your guts inside out like a frog for weeks. Your great-grandkids are going to keel over in the aftershock and give up their ghosts so in sync you’d think they practiced it at glee club.”

“Madam!” Alarm made Maxwell’s voice labored, as though he were being squeezed like a rubber duck in the claws of a bearger. 

Wilson thought _his_ guts might be the ones to do acrobatics instead because the relentless laughter that he couldn’t hold back made his head swim with stars and rainbows.

“Miss Wickerbottom!” Something cracked like a sharp heel of a shoe meeting wood after a fleshy target rolled to safety. “Can you for once serve some purpose and do something?”

If Wickerbottom had boasted any Good-Samaritanism toward Maxwell before, she managed to crush it down after that.

“Perhaps it would do you some good to handle it on your own, don’t you think, dear?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Feel free,” Willow cut in. “I’m going to trash your butt so bad your own girlfriend would never recognize it.”

Maxwell squawked.

“Isn’t that nice,” Wickerbottom said. “Working out differences among ourselves is a wonderful remedy for contention, isn’t it? Enjoy yourself, dear.”

There came a smattering of footsteps over dirt and a frantic thrashing of foliage. The whoops and racket faded.

Wilson relieved himself of a few final laugh-sobs. His brain felt bloated, as though it could crack his skull open like a coconut at any instant. He sat, half-crumpled, face pressed into his book and sniffling.

The tent rustled. He sat bolt upright and clapped the book shut faster than a mousetrap.

“Wilson, deary?”

Wickerbottom leaned in, raising the tent flap just enough for a cool breeze smelling of smoky wood and twilight curled in.

“Yes?” Wilson said and hoped the croak wasn’t noticeable.

A brief pang of pity washed across Wickerbottom’s face. 

“I assume you heard things.” More of an observation than a question.

“I think the entire island heard.”

“Hmm. Should I have stopped them? I’m sure you trust that I would have under any other circumstance, but . . .”

“Oh, no. I’m glad you didn’t. I needed the laughs and—I mean, uh, no, it was completely understandable, ma’am.”

“Do you suppose they’ll be okay?”

“‘They’?”

“Your sister,” Wickerbottom admitted.

“I’m not worried about her in the least. I mean that in the best possible way.”

“I know you do, dear. How’s the soup?”

“It’s a bit, err, spackling-y.”

“Save it then, in case we need to mend the boats. Shall I bring you another bowl? We could eat together if you care to do so, since your sister seems to be busy for the time being.”

Wilson sighed again. “I’d like that. Thank you, ma’am.”

Wickerbottom smiled and it was warm and soft and motherly. Wilson’s throat itched again. When Wickerbottom leaned out of the tent, Wilson grabbed his book and pressed it to his chest and squeezed his arms around the comforting weight.

His newfound sister had taken the time to find him when he’d closed himself away, and held him through his panic and comforted him.

Wickerbottom thought enough of him to share a meal with him to stave off the loneliness.

Wes would sleep by his side tonight with his arms folded around him, locking him away from the cold and nightmares and sounds of creeping darkness.

His friends would take turns feeding kindling to the fire to keep it blazing, warming the heart of their camp to keep him safe. They would ask about him tomorrow when he ventured out to have breakfast with them, and admit they’d been worried about him in his absence.

Maybe Willow was right. Maybe everything Maxwell said really _was_ a lie.

Willow did say she was right about everything. He didn’t want to argue.

Maybe everyone really did love him, after all.


End file.
